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Author: Craig Bass

Cameras in Your Aging Parent’s House: What Do You Need to Know?

Posted on by Craig Bass

Have you been wondering how to best care for your aging parent? Maybe you can’t be there to check in on them every single day. It might be a week or even more before you can check on your aging parent. This can cause issues and more worries on your part. Even if your aging parent has senior care providers, you might be worried about their care and needs. You can always install cameras in your aging parent’s house. Before doing this, there are some things that you might need to know.

Reasons to Install Cameras

There are numerous reasons why you might want to install cameras in your aging parent’s house. Some of these reasons include the following:

  • Proper and safe use of the stove
  • Stairway safety
  • Nutritional concerns
  • Proper medication use
  • Taking oxygen or sleep apnea machine as prescribed
  • Exercising or other physical activity
  • Care after a surgery

These are just some of the reasons why you may want to install cameras in your aging parent’s house.

Benefits of Using a Monitoring System in Your Parent’s House

If you do decide to install cameras in your aging parent’s house and they are alright with it, there are many benefits that could come from this. Some of these benefits include the following:

  • You and your parents can communicate with one another through the cameras
  • You can talk to senior care providers through the cameras
  • You can track movement throughout the home
  • Advertising your aging parent has a monitoring system can help to prevent break-ins
  • Determining if your aging parent needs more care than they are currently getting

These are some of the benefits that could come from installing a monitoring system in your aging parent’s house. If these sound like benefits that you and your aging parent could use, you can check into monitoring systems today.

Conclusion

Have you been worried about your aging parent because you can’t be there enough to check on them? If so, there are many options for getting them the care they need. One of the things you can do is to install cameras in your aging parent’s house. There are many different types of cameras and monitoring systems you can get. Some of them allow you to speak to your parent through the cameras and allow them to speak back to you. Find the cameras that provide the most benefits to you, your aging parent, and their senior care providers.

Sources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5712846/

If you or an aging loved one is considering senior care in Mascotte, FL, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Clermont today. 1-888-423-4046.

Tips for Supporting Your Elderly Loved One While Encouraging Them to Stay Independent

Posted on by Craig Bass

Do you want to help your elderly loved one to stay independent for as long as they can? If so, there are various things that you can do. The most important thing for you to remember is that you can support your elderly loved one without having to take over everything completely.

Making Items Easier for Them to Access

If your elderly loved one wants to stay independent, one of the things that you can do for them is to make items easier for them to access. For instance, if their short sleeve shirts are currently on a shelf higher up in the closet, but your loved one can’t reach their arms up that high anymore, you can bring those down to a lower shelf. Think about where everything is placed in their home and move things according to their needs.

Easy to Wear Clothing

Your elderly loved one probably has a certain style of clothing they like to wear. However, if they are having trouble using their fingers on buttons and/or zippers, you might want to get them easy to wear clothing. This might include loose-fitting shirts, pull up pants, and pants that have elastic waistbands.

Technology with Voice-Activation

If you want to help your elderly loved one stay independent, you can also get them some technology that is voice-activated. There are so many different devices that could be beneficial for your elderly loved one. Google and Amazon both have products that are great for the elderly. Some of the things this type of technology can do include the following:

  • Playing music
  • Locking and unlocking doors
  • Controlling the home’s thermostat
  • Controlling the lights
  • Telling the time
  • Making phone calls

If you want to help your elderly loved one do these things, you can check into some of this technology today.

Hiring Elderly Care Providers

If your elderly loved one wants to stay independent, but they do need extra help, you can always hire elderly care providers. The elderly care providers can offer the help and support that your loved one needs, while still allowing them to do things on their own.

Conclusion

These are some of the tips for supporting your elderly loved one, while still encouraging them to stay independent. Remember, if your loved one does need extra assistance, there is no shame in hiring someone to provide the help that they need. Elderly care providers can be there whenever your loved one needs, day or night.

Sources
https://www.hhs.gov/aging/healthy-aging/index.html

If you or an aging loved one is considering elderly care in Howey-in-The-Hills, FL, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Clermont today. 1-888-423-4046.

Four Habits That Family Caregivers Should Embrace

Posted on by Craig Bass

As a family caregiver, you can’t push aside your own needs. Self-care is important if you want to stay healthy. How do you do that when your parents need your help every day? These four habits are the ones you must embrace if you’re going to care for your own mental and physical health.

Get Enough Sleep

Make sure you’re getting the recommended seven or eight hours of sleep each night. To succeed at this, it’s good to create a routine. Go to bed an hour before you need to drift off to sleep. Put on a fan or air purifier for white noise and read a book for that hour. When the hour is up, turn out the lights and close your eyes.

It can help to come up with a way to calm your mind. One way to do this is by imagining you’re in your favorite place. Imagine walking up a mountain trail to a field full of lavender. You might imagine you’re walking down a quiet beach with the surf hitting your toes.

Take a Daily Walk

Each day, take a walk and bring your parents along. It gets them the exercise they need. It also helps you clear your mind, breathe some fresh air, and get your daily recommended 30 minutes of activity. Daily exercise helps lower the risk of many chronic health conditions and reduces stress. All of that is beneficial.

Make sure the walk is at a brisk pace. If your parents can’t walk fast, push them in a wheelchair. You could also walk a little ahead of them and loop back. This way, you’re getting your heart rate up and pumping blood around your body, which is the goal of daily exercise.

Choose Healthy Foods

A healthy diet is another component to better health. Aim for a daily diet that provides:

3 cups of dairy
2 ½ cups of vegetables
2 cups of fruit
¾ cup of whole grains
5 teaspoons of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats

Dairy options can include nut milks that are enriched with vitamin D if needed. When it comes to vegetables and fruits, try to get a variety of colors each day. Orange, red, blue/purple, green, and white foods are important. Leafy greens, white cauliflower, red and blue/purple berries, and red tomatoes are examples of daily options.

Take Time Off

If possible, take one or two days off every week. If you work five days a week, try to have weekends off. It may be hard to manage this, but it’s important to have time for your favorite activities, the right amount of sleep, and socialization.

How do you make sure your parents don’t have to go without while you’re taking time for self-care? Hire home care aides on a part-time basis. Just one day per week gives you the break you need and ensures your parents aren’t alone. Talk to a home care specialist about respite care and other helpful senior care services.

Sources:
https://health.gov/our-work/food-nutrition/2015-2020-dietary-guidelines/guidelines/chapter-1/a-closer-look-inside-healthy-eating-patterns/#food-groups

If you or an aging loved one is considering home care in Center Hill, FL, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Clermont today. 1-888-423-4046.

Tips for Helping Your Elderly Loved One Manage Diabetes

Posted on by Craig Bass

Does your elderly loved one have diabetes? If so, it is important that know that this condition can be managed in most cases. While there are many untreated cases of diabetes that lead to serious health consequences or even death, this doesn’t have to be the case for your elderly loved one right now. It is possible to avoid diabetes complications by creating a management plan with your elderly loved one and their doctors.

Tracking Glucose Levels

One of the most important things that you and elderly care providers can do for your loved one is to help them track their glucose levels. Many senior citizens need to be reminded to check their levels. However, you can help them to do this by calling them or doing it for them. If you can’t make it to their house to help, you can hire elderly care providers for this task.

Encouraging Better Eating

Another one of the ways that you can help your elderly loved one to manage their diabetes is by encouraging them to eat better. As a family caregiver, it is recommended that you learn more about how certain foods affect your elderly loved one’s glucose levels. Once you learn which foods are best for your loved one, encourage them to eat those foods more often. You should also learn which foods are bad for your elderly loved one. The elderly care providers that work with your loved one can help with this, too.

Encouraging Regular Exercise

Research shows that regular exercise can help to manage your elderly loved one’s glucose levels. It would be helpful if you could create a list of safe exercises for your elderly loved one to do on a regular basis. You could even help them by setting up an exercise routine/schedule. Encouraging your elderly loved one to exercise regularly can help them to lead a healthier lifestyle.

Better Communications

It is also important that you communicate more with your elderly loved one’s doctors. They can let you know what needs to be done in your loved one’s case. Not everyone has diabetes to the same severity. Knowing more about your elderly loved one’s diabetes case, specifically, can help you to better monitor what needs to be done.

Conclusion

These are some of the tips that can help your elderly loved one to manage their diabetes. Remember, there are many people who have diabetes that is unmanaged or untreated. In these instances, the health issues that arise are often severe or even fatal. Start helping your elderly loved one manage their diabetes today to prevent further health issues from occurring.

Sources
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/in-depth/diabetes-management/art-20047963

If you or an aging loved one is considering elderly care in Minneola, FL, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Clermont today. 1-888-423-4046.

Four Tips if Your Senior Is Feeling Disconnected

Posted on by Craig Bass

Your senior may be experiencing a lot of changes to her world and to how she interacts with the people that she loves. That can even leave her feeling more disconnected than usual from the life that she used to have. These are just a few ways that you can help her to feel more connected to the world around her.

Look for Ways to Try New Things

Trying new things gives your senior a chance to meet new people and to keep her brain engaged. It’s a great way for her to branch out a bit and to forge new connections in her community and in areas of interest she might not have explored before. She might find that she wants to start volunteering or finding other ways to share what she knows, too.

Open up a Conversation with Friends and Family

One reason that older adults can start to feel disconnected is that their family members or friends are not as able to visit or have lost contact a bit. If it’s possible for your senior’s friends and family members to be more conscious about reaching out, that can be helpful. It may be a good idea to try to set up a way for friends and family members to check in on a regular rotating basis with your elderly family member as well.

Bring in Senior Care Providers

Having some help, particularly with tasks that have become difficult or exhausting, can give your senior better energy reserves so that she can connect with others more readily. Senior care providers can also offer understanding companionship. They’re familiar with needs like the ones your senior has and they know how to help your elderly family member to have the best quality of life possible.

Meeting People Going through the Same Things Can Help

If your elderly family member has health issues that she feels keep her from being as socially active as she would like, it might be a good idea to find other people going through the same things. Support groups, either online or in person, can give your senior a chance to learn more about how other people are coping with health issues. They can also give her a chance to talk to other people who understand her situation.

Your elderly family member might do better with a combination of these ideas. It all depends on her specific needs and wants.

If you or an aging loved one is considering senior care in Yalaha, FL, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Clermont today. 1-888-423-4046.

How Can You Talk to Your Senior about Extra Help?

Posted on by Craig Bass

It can be really difficult to know how to proceed when you know your senior needs more help than you’re able to provide. The conversation can get prickly very quickly and that’s probably something that you want to avoid. That might mean you need to do a little bit of information gathering and then carefully open a conversation.

Assess How Well She’s Eating

Diet and nutritional needs are really important. If your elderly family member isn’t eating well now, you really need to know that. Take a look at what kinds of foods she’s eating. If her refrigerator and her pantry have a lot of expired foods or they’re emptier than you expect, that might be a bad sign. Ask your elderly family member what she’s usually eating. She might be relying on convenience foods more than is healthy.

Are There Safety Issues?

It’s also important to look at possible safety issues. Is your senior facing home repairs that are difficult or impossible for her to handle? Is she avoiding simple tasks, like changing light bulbs, even though that makes her home a little less safe? These are things you may need to investigate a little further in order to figure out. They’re not always obvious at first glance.

What Else Are You Noticing?

There are other things you might be noticing, even if you don’t realize you’re noticing them at first. Things like whether your senior is opening her mail or not could be important. If clutter or papers are piling up, that can also be an important signal for you to notice. Rearranging furniture might be a good idea, too, especially if your elderly family member needs more room for better mobility.

Be Open and Straightforward

By the time you’re ready to actually open up a conversation with your senior about all of this, you should have a good bit of information to help you. Be open and honest with her, and make sure that you’re not hedging or dodging anything. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Having help from home care providers can make life easier for both your senior and you as her caregiver.

Just because you’re trying to get help in place for your senior, that doesn’t mean that you don’t trust her or that you don’t respect her ability to take care of herself. What it does mean is that you care and that you want the best for her

If you or an aging loved one is considering home care in Clermont, FL, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Clermont today. 1-888-423-4046.